Home Education - Birds and Friends

How do I get myself into these situations? I really am an idiot at times. Not just a bit of an idiot, but a complete, total and utter idiot. Today, I managed to have five passengers, when my car can only accommodate four. D'uh. So, I had to drive to Bird World, drop off some of them and then drive all the way back to collect the rest and bring them to Bird World.

Idiot.

Bird World is nearly an hour from here, so it took about 3 hours to get everyone there.

Idiot.

Still, Bird World was excellent. The children really enjoyed meeting a cockatoo that says 'hello, stupid!' and they had a lovely guided tour where they were shown penguins and learned how they survive in the cold. They all really loved seeing a newly hatched chick in an incubator and they terrorised the ducklings as they tried to pick them up.

There was a water world there as well with some humongous fish and some very scary looking crocodiles.

Luckily for me, Tess was there with her grandson, Theo, and she took Thomas back to her house, so I could collect him after dropping everyone else home. Thus Tess saved me from another 3 hours of driving. Thank you!

Now, this brings me on to something really important about home education. It brings me on to the subject of all things social. Once they've got their heads around how I might be capable of educating my son, people always ask about how my son will have a social life. Today offered up the perfect explanation. When we arrived at Bird World, we were greeted by a number of people we knew. You see, there are a hell of a lot of people home educating, and mostly thanks to technology, we all communicate with each other. So, there are lots of meet-ups you can go to - we could probably go to two a day locally. And, because we all communicate, you very quickly start to know people. Even the people you don't know are very friendly and so you soon get to know even more people.

Thomas has made some lovely friends and so have I - just look at how Tess rescued me! And, don't forget that we were taking other home ed friends with us as well. We sometimes see them for play dates and the like and we sometimes see them at events like this. It's really great. The social side of things has not been a problem at all.